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Monday, August 26, 2013

I spent most of the 1980’s as an associate in Lawrenceburg, in
Anderson County.The church I
served was a few miles south of town, with open land behind it.Unfortunately, it became a “meet-up”
place for people.The parking lot
behind the church was totally concealed from the highway, and I could look out
of my office window and see couples meeting in the parking lot below.They would drive both cars, park, and
drive away in one of the cars.One
couple had been meeting like this over a period of weeks, and, to be honest, it
really got under my skin.Not at the church, please, was my
attitude.One day, after seeing
them drive off in one car, I went into the minister’s office and said you know what we should do?We should go out and let the air out of
one of their tires.That would let
them know they are being watched.He said no, and I thought perhaps, he’s right.Maybe we should just leave them alone.But then he said No.What we should do is
let the air out of two of the tires, that way they’ll have to call someone to
come and help them.And then
they’ll have to explain what their car is doing parked behind our church.So we went out and let the air out of
both of the back tires.We never
saw them again!

As we continue our series, Nurturing
A Healthy Heart, this morning we come to faithfulness.As I
began thinking about faithfulness that story came to mind, because when we hear
the word faithfulness, we think of our relationships, and when we think of
relationships, we think about our marriages.

A lack of faithfulness in marriage is one of the most emotionally
and spiritually destructive events a person can experience.Some people are able to work through that
devastation, but many do not.

This morning, I want to speak two words – a pastoral word and a
theological word.

First, the pastoral word, and it is about relationships.Here it is in a very simple sentence –
if you are having relationship difficulties, do what you can to fix them. It is not a one-person task to fix a
relationship, but do what you
can.And here are a couple of
things when it comes to fixing a relationship –

1.There is your side, the
other person’s side, and the truth.Sometimes, when I counsel with people, I can’t help but wonder as I hear
two very different accounts of the relationship and the problem.We must learn to hear what the other
person is saying, and that isn’t easy, especially when we are hurt.It’s hard to hear anything through our
hurt.

We all see through a “lens” in life.In relationships, that lens is often distorted by anger,
frustration, disappointment, and hurt.When we are looking through a lens shaped by those emotions, we are
unable to see some of the truths we need to see and understand.

2.If you don’t see a
relationship going anywhere, do the person a favor and don’t string them
along.

I heard some rather amazing poll results the other day.The results of this poll found that 73
per cent have made do with their
partner because their true love
slipped through their fingers.73%!

You can’t toy with the heart of another person.

3.Be honest.

I find that people, as much as the truth may hurt, really want to
hear the truth.We all deserve the
truth.Be honest in your
relationships.

I will add a disclaimer here.Some people love to use the truth as a weapon.These people want to use truth – or their version of it – to
bring hurt.It’s easy to see when
this is coming – it usually if prefaced by this comment – I want to tell you something in love.I generally find there is very little love in what they have
to say, but plenty of hurt.

4.Get help when
you need it.

If you are sick and cannot get better on your own, what do you
do?You call a doctor, don’t
you?We don’t mess around with our
health, so why do we so often drag our feet?Get help!

I had a couple come to me once and their marriage was in really bad
shape.I met with the husband one
day and he was pretty clueless, even by guy standards.We talked a while, and I told him they
really needed to talk to a professional, and I recommended one to him.I remember the day when they came to me
to say that counselor had saved their marriage.And not only saved the marriage but made it stronger and
better than before.

5.Love is always
worth the work.

Love, and relationships, are not always easy.Relationships take work, but love is
worth the work.

That’s the pastoral word; now the theological word.

The passage we read this morning comes from one of the parables of
Jesus, as found in Luke’s gospel.Hear
our readings this morning, first from Galatians, where we find the Fruits of the Spirit, and then from
Luke’s gospel –

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things
there is no law.

1 Then Jesus told
his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give
up.

2 He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who
neither feared God nor cared what people thought.

3 And there was a widow in that town who kept
coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’

4 “For some time he refused. But finally he said to
himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think,

5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will
see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”

6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust
judge says.

7 And will not God bring about justice for his
chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?

8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice,
and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes,will he find
faith on the earth?”

This parable comes after Jesus had been questioned about when the
kingdom of God would come.Jesus
spoke with his disciples about the future.They were worried, very worried, about the present and the future.Their world seemed to be falling
apart.As bad as the present was,
they wondered if things are this bad now,
what’s the future going to be like?What’s going to happen to our children and grandchildren?

Does that sound familiar?Have you ever worried about what the future holds for your children and
grandchildren?

The world always seems to be falling apart.People are always worried about the
future, and for good reason, as there are some very real concerns.

So Jesus tells this parable about a widow who goes to a judge
seeking justice.We don’t know
what she had experienced, but someone had taken advantage of her in some way or
perhaps cheated her out of money.Jesus said the judge neither
feared God nor cared about men (verse 2).This judge did not care about the woman or her
problems.He was, sadly, a very
corrupt judge.

We have friends who adopted internationally.They were encouraged to bring gifts for the judge who was presiding
over their case.Gifts?I don’t think that’s the word we would
use in our legal system.This
judge was many times worse.He was
openly corrupt and unconcerned about justice.He was a Snidley Whiplash type of character, if you remember
that cartoon.

The parable is often seen as a story of being persistent in our
prayers, which is correct.Luke
tells us at the beginning of the passage that Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always
pray and not give up (verse 1).But people often assume Jesus means that if we pray often enough, and
hard enough, God will eventually relent and grant us what we ask.That is not at all what the parable is
teaching.

In the parable Jesus is drawing a contrast between God and the unrighteous judge, not a comparison. The
judge would not respond to her request and only did so after her repeated
pleas.The judge was eventually
worn down and granted her request for justice in order to save himself from the
headache of her perseverance and to spare himself the embarrassment of not
acting upon her request.

The lesson Jesus teaches through the parable is that God is not at
all like this judge.We do not
have to cajole or wear God out with our continual pleas.In fact, Jesus says in Matthew 6:8 that
your Father knows what you need before
you ask him.God is not like this judge.He is not thinking, if they would just ask one more time, and
with a bit more conviction, or if they would get another ten people praying,
then I would step in and help out.

The problem is not that God does not hear our prayers; the problem
is in our trying to understand God’s ways and learning to adapt to his time
frame.We often struggle to
understand the manner in which God works, wondering why he doesn’t seem to
answer our prayers.The truth is,
God answers our prayers, but the time frame in which he answers, and the manner
in which he answers, are not always understandable to us.

God tends to work over the long haul; we tend to operate in the
moment.It’s hard to think and act
in our long-term interests.We
have enough difficulty getting through today; why should we worry about
tomorrow?

At the end of the parable Jesus flips the question of faithfulness
around – will God find that we are faithful?Will we continue to be faithful in our prayers and in our
faith, even though we may struggle to see the hand of God at work in our lives?

I used to have a poster that said when you come to the end of your rope – let go.It’s good advice to let go and to allow
yourself to fall into the loving arms of God.Trust and believe that he is working on your behalf.You may not see his hand, but his hand
is guiding your life.You may not
understand his plan, but his plan is one of goodness for your life.You may not understand his timetable,
but his goodness will come to you.

Monday, August 19, 2013

As we continue our series of messages Nurturing A Healthy Heart, based on the
Fruits of the Spirit, this morning we come to goodness.How do we
define goodness?Let’s listen to
how Jesus replies to a question about goodness –

18 A certain ruler
asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

20 You know the
commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall
not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’

21 “All these I have
kept since I was a boy,” he said.

22 When Jesus heard
this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and
give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

23 When he heard
this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy.

24 Jesus looked at
him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!

25 Indeed, it is easier
for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to
enter the kingdom of God.”

26 Those who heard
this asked, “Who then can be saved?”

27 Jesus replied,
“What is impossible with man is possible with God.”

Does this passage sound odd to you?There are a couple of unusual elements in this passage.First, is Jesus saying he is not
good?And is he asking us, as he
does this man, to sell all we have?

This man comes to Jesus asking how he might inherit eternal
life.Immediately, Jesus sense the
man is asking the wrong question, because he asks what he must do.

This brings us to the first point about goodness that we learn from
this passage –

Goodness is not a competition.

We live in a very competitive world.Just wait until football and basketball season start, if you
need an example of competitiveness.

Goodness is not a competition.

Recent editions of the Sentinel-News
have featured a bit of a dustup between belief and unbelief.A letter from a person who rejects religious
belief said it is not necessary to be religious to be a moral person.And he’s correct in that
statement.What he doesn’t seem to
understand is that even in his rejection of religious belief he is still very
influenced by faith and his definition of goodness probably comes from
religious belief.The mistake made
on both sides of the great chasm that separates belief and unbelief is to argue
with one another about who can be moral.It’s not a competition.

We are not out to see if we can be better than everyone else to
prove to God that we are more worthy of earning salvation.That’s a fairly easy competition
anyway, isn’t it?We can always
find somebody who makes us look very good by comparison.I can say well, I’m certainly not like Mother Teresa, but I’m a lot better than
the guy next door, or down the street (or maybe in the next seat at
church).

This was a mistake made by many of the religious leaders of Jesus’
day.They were very good according
to the law, and yet Jesus was very critical of them, and even called them a brood of vipers and compared them to whitewashed tombs, looking good on the
outside but containing nothing but death inside.

While that sounds very harsh, it’s more of an observation than it is
a criticism.They believed that
goodness was solely in a person’s actions.

The man who came to Jesus made goodness sound competitive.What
must I do?When Jesus tells
him to keep the commandments the man eagerly responds he’s done all that.Come
on Jesus, give me something else.What else can I do?Have I
done everything?

And then Jesus drops the bomb on him – sell everything you have and
give it to the poor.

Would Jesus ask that of every person?I don’t think so.Jesus was trying to make this man understand that if you want to base it
all on goodness you’re going down an impossible road, because there’s always
going to be something else you can do.

Goodness has to do with who we are.

There is a stereotype of faith that it takes all the fun out of
life.It portrays people of faith
as puritanical prudes.That really
drives me crazy, but that’s what happens when so much emphasis is put on what
we do, rather than on emphasizing who we are.

What we do will follow who we are.

The Scriptures seem to assume that who we are is more important than
what we do, and that’s because we do what we are.What we do – or don’t do – is evidence of who we are.

Goodness goes to the heart.You can perform good deeds with bad motives, but God is always trying to
transform who we are as people.This is why Jesus, in the Sermon On the Mount, talked about our internal
lives.

God is looking for
transformation.

I have known a lot of saints in my lifetime; people who were such
great role models.These saints
are people from my childhood right down to the present day.

I used to try to be like many of those people, and that’s a positive
thing to do.But they weren’t
interested in me becoming like them; they were trying to teach me to be like
Jesus. C. S. Lewis talks about this as good
infection (Mere Christianity,
page 153).It’s like a good virus
that sweeps through humanity, as we seek to be like Jesus.

The heart of the gospel is in being transformed. The Scriptures talk about being born again, about putting on Christ, about being a
new creation.It really talks
more about transformation than it talks about being good, because goodness is
an outcome of who we are.If we
want to be good, we have to be new and different people.

One of the great examples of this transformation is John Newton, who
wrote Amazing Grace.A terrible, notorious slave trader,
Newton was dramatically converted, and the hymn Amazing Grace bears testimony to the change that came in his
life.Perhaps that’s why it
resonates with so many people.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Would you answer be people,
your neighbor, everybody?I
often heard the phrase be kind to animals.You can, I believe, discover a lot
about a person by the way the treat animals.

Twice in recent weeks I’ve been in an interesting traffic
situation.Cutting across from
Shelbyville Road to go to Baptist East via Bowling Boulevard there is a pond
and a marsh area.There’s a group
of geese always gathered there and occasionally they decide to cross the road.

A couple of weeks ago a large group of them walked into the road and
all the cars stopped.Of course, I
had to take a picture (by the way, I was not moving when the picture was taken.I don’t take pictures or text while
driving.I like the bumper sticker
that says honk if you love Jesus; text
while driving if you want to meet him).Most of the drivers were very patient, but as the geese
decided to stop in the middle of the road and just stand there, one driver
started honking his horn.That
doesn’t work for geese.Why?Because geese honk!They just start looking around and
wondering which one of us is honking.It took a while before traffic could
get moving again and I think everyone actually enjoyed watching the antics of
those geese.

A couple of days ago, I was driving the same route and a flock of
geese decided to step into the road again.This time, someone driving a pickup truck was not so
kind.He sped up, laid on his
horn, and just about ran down the entire flock.It was really an unkind action.

As we continue our series of messages Nurturing A Healthy Heart, today we come to kindness.

Kindness seems very simple, doesn’t it?Be kind to animals.When a flock of geese is trying to cross the road, let them cross.When a person needs help across the
road, help them out.Hold the door
for someone who has their arms full.Speak to people with kindness.

That’s how we generally view kindness, isn’t it?And all those actions, and many more,
are indeed examples of kindness.But as we talk about kindness this morning, we will see that in the
Biblical sense, kindness is a far deeper matter than how we generally conceive
it to be.Kindness, in the
Biblical sense, is much more profound than just helping someone across the
street or holding open a door.As
we will see, kindness is very deep, very profound, and, most of all, very
challenging.

Scripturally, kindness is a synonym for other things, and I have
selected several passages of Scripture this morning that define kindness for
us.

Kindness leads to forgiveness.

Paul writes in Ephesians
4:32Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as
God in Christ forgave you.

I don’t think that Paul just
casually put those particular words together.I don’t think that as he wrote he was thinking, oh this
sounds good together – be kind, be tenderhearted, forgive one another.That’s a nice string of things to say.Paul puts those words together, I
believe, for a very specific reason – he does so because Christian kindness
brings about forgiveness.

There are stories often in the
news about people forgiving others, even when a horrendous crime has taken
place.There are stories of people
forgiving the person who murdered a loved one and other amazing stories of
forgiveness.And I don’t know if I
have ever heard or read one of those stories where faith was missing.It is always faith that leads a person
to grant forgiveness, even in horrific circumstances.

Now, I want to add at this point
that you should put out of your mind the old saying forgive and forget.I think you should put that saying out
of your mind because it leads people to the wrong conclusion – that if you have
not forgotten, you have not forgiven.That is not true.You do
not have to forget in order to forgive.In fact, some hurts are so deep it is highly unlikely that we will ever
forget them, but that does not mean we cannot forgive.

Kindness is an expression of love.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 says
that love is patient and kind…

It is impossible to fake real
kindness.You can get by for a
while, but if kindness is not rooted in love, it will become obvious sooner or
later.

Kindness is a synonym for
love.In fact, the King James
Version sometimes puts the words kindness and love together – lovingkindness
– as a reminder of the intrinsic link between the two.

This is where kindness becomes
far deeper, and more difficult, than mere surface actions, such as holding a
door open for someone, because that’s easy to do.It doesn’t cost us anything other than a few moments to hold
open a door, or to speak to someone in a polite manner, or to offer directions.
I prefer the type of kindness that
only asks me to hold open a door for someone.What about you?I prefer it because it’s so much easier.

But to love someone, that’s very
different.

Kindness is love
personified.Kindness is love made
visible, which is not always easy.Sometimes it is.When
someone loves us, it’s wonderful and easy, isn’t it?But Jesus says what is the greatness of that type of
love?We can all love those who
love us.In Matthew 5:46-47, in
the Sermon On the Mount, Jesus says, If you love those who love you, what
reward will you get?Are not even
the tax collectors doing that?And
if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others?

As I was preparing for Zola
Kephart’s funeral Laine brought her mother’s Bible by the office.People often do this when I’m working
on funeral messages and I always appreciate it.It’s very interesting to go through a person’s Bible to see
what passages they highlight and to read the many notes they often place within
the pages.Among the notes in
Zola’s Bible was a prayer she had written.About a paragraph long it included many of the things we
often find in prayers – asking forgiveness for our sins and giving thanks for
our blessings – but ended in a very interesting way.Zola concluded with these words – and help us Lord to
love others, even our enemies.We often ask for help in loving others, but we don’t always add the
request that we love our enemies, but this is exactly what Jesus asks of us.

The real test, says Jesus, is to
love the one who does not love us.The real test is to love the one who despises us and even works to our
detriment.The real test of love
is to love even the one who is our enemy.In Luke 6:35 Jesus says,But
love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your
reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind
to the ungrateful and the evil.

Kindness leads to compassion.

Compassion is the ability to see
others in the way that God sees them.

Imagine it this way – it’s the
difference between another child and your child.Imagine a child that is hungry, and then imagine it is your
child that is hungry.Imagine a
child, that is lonely, and then imagine it is your child that is lonely.Imagine a child that is ill, and then
imagine it is your child that is ill.Imagine a child that is frightened, and then imagine it is your child
that is frightened.Imagine a
child that is poor, and then imagine it is your child that is poor.When it’s your child, your

actions and
feelings are much different, aren’t they?

There is no one – no one – who is
not a child of God, and it is God’s desire, I believe, that we develop the
capacity to see others in the way that he sees others – as his children.

I watched a news story the other
day about an 11-year-old young man who has spent his summer mowing lawns.That’s not a big news story, but his
purpose was.His goal was to earn
$1,000.00 over the summer to give away to people who had lost homes from storm
damage.That’s a big goal.That’s a lot of yards to mow.What was especially inspiring about the
story was how he inspired others.Because of his efforts, friends and neighbors had contributed
$16,000.00, without anyone asking them to do so.

We think the world is a tough,
difficult, and terrible place, and it can be at times.But there is a lot of goodness – a lot
of kindness still in our world.It
is a kindness born of the Spirit of God that touches the hearts of people.

Tuesday, August 06, 2013

How many of you have ever heard, or said, be careful what you pray for?Almost every time that phrase is said, it’s attached to – what?Patience.We’re happy to pray for almost anything, except
patience.

Isn’t that odd? We seem
to believe that if we pray for patience God is going to fill our lives with
such struggles that we will be forced to develop a greater sense of
patience.Why do we believe that
praying for patience is in invitation for hardship to enter our lives? Perhaps
that’s what it takes for us to learn patience, as patience is really tough.

As we continue our series of messages on Nurturing A Healthy Heart, this morning we come to patience.Ah.This is a
tough one, isn’t it?I know a lot
of people with a lot of gifts, but the gift of patience may be the most rare of
all.And make no mistake about it
– patience is a true gift.

As we talk about patience this morning I want to break it down into
three areas where we need patience – patience with ourselves, patience with
others, and patience with God.

Patience with ourselves.

There are some things I would like to see more often in people, and
one of them is the ability to be patient with one’s self.

People can be really, really hard on themselves.And maybe that’s because someone has
been really hard on them.The
person trying desperately to live up to the expectations of someone else will
struggle to be patient with himself.No matter how much they push, and they strive, no matter what they do or
what they accomplish, it’s never enough.

Maybe they need to turn off the media images that fill our minds as
to how we should look, act, and live.Those images aren’t real anyway.

Maybe it’s living in an instant gratification society, where we
think everything has to happen right now, and we have to be what we want to be
right now.I want success right
now; I don’t want to have to work years for it.I want to be financially sound, and I want it to
happen right now and without any sacrifice.I want to be physically fit, and I want it to happen right
now, and with very little effort.I want to be spiritually fit, but I don’t want to put out the effort
that it requires.

When I think of someone who was patient, I think of the Old
Testament character Job.Job, you
may remember, had it all, and then lost it all.He had three friends, who were not at all helpful, because
they kept blaming him for his circumstances.Their plea was for Job to confess what he had done wrong and
hope that God would restore him.I
don’t admire Job’s circumstances, but I admire Job, because in spite of his
condition and though he had a lot of questions to ask, he remained patient.

Patience with others

If you want to measure the ability of someone to be patient with
other people there is a very simple test – put them behind the wheel of a
car.And then have them sit at an
intersection where another driver is sitting at a green light as they punch a
text message into their phone.Have you been there before?Surely you haven’t been the person tapping out the text.

People may frustrate you, they may drive you crazy, but you know
what?You probably do the same to
somebody.We are all works in
progress, and we must learn to be patient with one another.Every one of us has struggled to be patient
with other people, but we are called to practice patience with one another.

Paul writes in Ephesians 4:2 be
patient, bearing with one another in love.Jesus was often frustrated with his disciples.In Luke 9:41 he says O unbelieving and perverse generation, how
long shall I stay with you and put up with you?”The disciples were often slow to understand the teachings of
Jesus.After hearing many of the
parables they would ask what those parables meant, but Jesus never gave up on
them, and his patience was certainly rewarded.Look at the faith they attained and look at what they
eventually accomplished.

Patience with God

Frank Schaeffer has written a book titled Patience With God.It’s
an interesting thought, isn’t it, that we would need to be patient with God.

There are a lot of people who need to make peace with God.They have lost their patience with
God.Job lost his patience with God.He wanted an audience with God.He had some questions to ask.

One of the best prayers I ever heard came from a 5th
grade young man.I don’t know if
it was original to him, but it sure had some great theology.He volunteered to give the benediction
and part of his prayer was Lord, help us
not to see you as just a vending machine, putting a little in to get out of you
what we want.That’s pretty
good, isn’t it?

Our relationship with God is not a simple transaction where we put
in $2.00 worth of faith and expect $5.00 worth of blessing in return.It doesn’t work that way.It’s not an I’ve given you this God, now give me that type of
relationship.Many times we don’t
understand how God works, and it requires a great deal of patience on our part
while we try to understand his plan.

I believe that the Bible is a long treatise on patience, because
there are so many passages that are what I would call hang in there passages.They are passages such as Isaiah 40:28-31, that we read this
morning.Passages like the 23rd
Psalm.I Corinthians 13.Philippians 4:13 – I
can do all this through him who gives me strengthHebrews 11:1 – Now
faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

When we read through Exodus, we find the people of God wandering in
the wilderness, often losing patience with God. We find them struggling to understand the ways and the
purposes of God, and their impatience led them to some tragic choices, such as
fashioning and then worshipping a golden calf.We read through Genesis and find that Abraham and Sarah take
matters into their own hands and decide that Abraham should have a child with
Hagar instead of patiently waiting upon God.We read that Esau traded away his birthright to his brother
Jacob instead of patiently waiting.We read Luke’s gospel and the parable of the prodigal son and his
impatience that leads him to take half of his father’s wealth and belongings to
waste as he squanders his life.And perhaps most tragic of all, we read of Judas, who was impatient as
he waited for Jesus to be the kind of Messiah that he desired, and when Jesus
did not fulfill the plan of Judas, Judas betrayed him.

I am not a person who can grow anything.I don’t garden and I am just not very good at growing
anything.Perhaps it’s my lack of
patience.There is a great lesson
of patience in the plant world, and it comes from Chinese bamboo. When you plant this kind of bamboo it
must be watered and nurtured for an entire growing season, but it never breaks
through the ground, not even an inch.The second growing season, it must be watered and nurtured, and again,
it does not grow even an inch. Even in the third growing season, it doesn’t grow even an
inch.And a fourth year.Most people would never make it past
the first growing season, believing their efforts to be wasted.But four years?That’s a lot of time and patience and
to see nothing happen.All the
work for absolutely no evidence of a return.

But in the fifth year, something surprising happens.All that work suddenly pays off, and
the bamboo tree can grow to over eighty feet tall in that one season.It’s not that four years of inactivity
took place.During those four
years there is a lot of activity under ground.The roots are growing to provide a system that can sustain the
growth that is to come.